ITALY
The Reuben Brothers have acquired an historic city center property, which they plan to make into the “best luxury hotel in Rome”.
They entered into contractual arrangements with Corinthia Hotels, the five-star hotel portfolio, to develop, lease and operate it as an ultra-luxury hotel.
The property is the former seat of the Central Bank of Italy on Parliament Square. The 7,500 square meter property will be converted into a luxury destination, featuring guest suites and bedrooms, restaurants and bars wrapping around a central garden as well as a spa and rooftop amenities.
Objective to create the best luxury hotel in Rome
Jamie Reuben, a principal at Reuben Brothers, tells of plans for the best luxury hotel in Rome. “This acquisition and development is yet another milestone in establishing our global property footprint, and furthers our interests in Italy, which include the newly-opened Palazzo Experimental in Venice. Our objective here is to create the best luxury hotel in Rome.”
Simon Naudi, Chief Executive Officer of Corinthia, says, “We are very pleased to have entered into these arrangements as developers and operators, adding yet another flag to our portfolio in one of the most visited cities worldwide. We are also especially proud of having established the foundations for a new partnership with the Reuben Brothers.”
Design work is commencing immediately and works are expected to start in 2020. The Corinthia in Rome is targeting a premium positioning in the city’s hotel market, due to its significance, location and investment committed, as well as its aim to create the best luxury hotel in Rome.
The Rome acquisition is the latest addition to the Reuben’s existing pipeline of hotel investments and developments in the UK and Europe, including in Venice, Italy, Verbier, Switzerland, and in London Grosvenor Square Mayfair, The “In & Out Club” on Piccadilly, Great Marlborough Street in Soho and the Curtain Hotel and Members’ Club in Shoreditch .
The hotel follows Corinthia’s tradition of restoring 19th century grand hotels across Europe. The Corinthia London, Corinthia Budapest, formerly the Grand Hotel Royal, and Corinthia Hotel St Petersburg, Russia, are all 19th century landmark properties which have been acquired, redeveloped and relaunched by Corinthia Hotels. In Brussels, the former Grand Hotel Astoria is being transformed back to its original splendour. Corinthia is also transforming the former Grand Hotel du Boulevard in Bucharest and Corinthia Hotel & Residences Moscow is under development.
Logistics warehouse on edge of Paris acquired
FRANCE
Global real estate investment manager LaSalle Investment Management has advised its pan-European fund Encore+ in the acquisition of an urban logistics warehouse on the edge of Paris.
The property is in Gonesse, a popular and well-established logistics submarket in the north of Paris. It is single let to a blue-chip tenant. The warehouse is on the main distribution axis between north and south France. It is at the crossroads between the A1 and A3 motorways and close to both Paris-Le Bourget Airport and Charles De Gaulle Airport.
Two new metro stations of the line 17 will be built near the property as part of the Grand Paris project. In addition, the €3bn EuropaCity project, a major retail, residential and cultural hub, is expected to be developed on the adjacent land plot.
The property is fitted to a class A specification and offers close to 25,000 square meters of rental space. It consists of four storage cells, 26 docking bays and office space.
David Ironside, Fund Manager of Encore+, LaSalle Investment Management, says, “This is a great asset close to Paris in one of Europe’s fastest-growing logistics markets. Thanks to the significant growth of e-commerce in France – the online share of total retail sales in France is currently growing at a double-digit rate – the demand for urban logistics continues to increase. The development of the town of Gonesse will be a constraint on the supply of further logistics capacity in the area.”
LaSalle was advised by C&C (Notary), Baker McKenzie (Lawyers), Etypo (Technical) and KPMG (Tax).
The investment strategy for Encore+ focuses on improving assets and creating growth by seeking opportunities to actively manage assets to deliver superior income returns.
Fund invests in Helsinki offices
FINLAND
Union Investment has acquired approximately 3,500 square meters of office space in Helsinki city center.
The fully leased multi-tenant building at Lapinlahdenkatu 3 currently has 17 tenants. It was built in 1900 and last updated in 2008.
The seller and main
tenant of around 25% of the space is the Martha-Bund, an association with
around 46,000 members, which specializes in domestic issues and consumer
protection. The purchase takes place for the open-end real estate special
fund DIFA Fund No. 3. The contracting parties have agreed not to disclose the
purchase price.
Wolfgang Kessler, Member of the Board of Union Investment Institutional
Property GmbH, says, “The DIFA Fund No. 3 focuses on real estate in
Germany and also has the opportunity to diversify its portfolio in other
established European country markets. With its property volume, tenant
structure and the high fungibility of the property, the multi-tenant building
fits very well into the fund portfolio.”
Union Investment manages assets of currently around €40 billion. It invests in the office, retail, hotel, logistics and residential segments. It holds about 400 properties in 23 countries in its actively managed portfolio.
Land purchased for new student accommodation in Dusseldorf
GERMANY
Micro-apartment student accommodation is to be built in Düsseldorf after a plot of land was purchased.
Commerz Real Capital Management Company (Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft, KVG) announced the project for its “Commerz Real Institutional Smart Living Fund”.
There will be 70 furnished apartments built with a total leasable area of 1,500 square metres, plus 10 underground car parking spaces. Completion is due in autumn 2020.
They will be 700 square metres of land on Rethelstrasse in the city’s Düsseltal district.
The seller is the Essen-based project developer List Develop Residential, which is also developing the project. It was agreed that confidentiality be maintained on the purchase price.
The acquisition was structured by Commerz Real as an asset deal in the form of forward funding.
This means that Commerz Real has initially acquired the plot of land with an obligation to build and List is responsible for the turnkey construction of the property.
Another building in Düsseldorf, at Merziger Strasse 19 in the city’s Derendorf district, was acquired at the beginning of 2017 and went into operation in November 2018.
DIA Asset buys three properties for €106 million
GERMANY
Listed property company DIC Asset has acquired three new assets for €106 million.
It has acquired a grocery retail centre in Stockstadt am Main, ILS Headquarters in Hamburg and the LaVie property in Düsseldorf.
The property is earmarked for its business units Commercial Portfolio and Institutional Business (via GEG).
With these latest acquisitions, DIC Asset has brought its acquisition total to date up to approximately €1.1 billion and is on course to achieve its year-end target of €1.3 billion.
Thomas Gerstmann, Head of Investment at DIC Asset AG, says, “The acquisition of three attractive properties for our two business divisions demonstrates the strong transaction performance of our team. For the institutional client business of GEG, we identified assets perfectly complementing the portfolio while simultaneously securing the first property for a new office fund in the “LaVie” property in Düsseldorf.
“The grocery retail property in Stockstadt, which has excellent fundamentals, will help us generate stable and long-term rental income from our diversified proprietary portfolio.”
Neighbourhood retail center
For its proprietary portfolio (Commercial Portfolio), DIC acts as owner and property asset holder, generating steady cash flows from stable long-term rent revenues and from the value optimisation of its properties.
The neighbourhood retail centre, bought for around €25 million (TIC), has a lettable area of around 9,100 square meters. Its lead tenants are grocery multiple retailer Rewe and a Drogerie Müller drugstore outlet, which together occupy about 90% of the floor area on long-term leases. The average remaining lease term (WALT) is more than 11 years, generating an annual rental income of approximately €1.4 million. This translates into a gross purchase yield of around 6.1% relative to the net purchase price. The transfer into the Commercial Portfolio is expected before the end of the year. The sale of the retail warehouse park was brokered by the LÜHRMANN estate agency.
Institutional Business – two acquisitions
In the Institutional Business division (€5.3 billion in assets under management), DIC Asset AG generates income via its subsidiary GEG German Estate Group through the structuring and managing of investment vehicles with attractive dividend yields for national and international institutional investors.
On behalf of the GEG Public Infrastructure I fund, a fully occupied office property in Hamburg with a lettable area of around 11,100 square meters was bought. It houses the headquarters of the renowned distance-learning institute ILS (Institute for Learning Systems). The seller was an investor group represented by MPC Capital, a Hamburg-based asset and investment manager. The property on Doberaner Weg accommodates training facilities, classrooms and a cafeteria. The average remaining lease term is around 13.5 years as of 30 September 2019. The transfer of ownership is expected to take place in late November.
Another acquisition, involving the modern multi-tenant office building LaVie in Düsseldorf, is the first property earmarked for a new office investment fund that the company plans to set up by the end of the year. The property, raised in 2001, comprises two building sections. It is in the Unterrath district close to Düsseldorf Airport. Roughly 90% of the lettable area of around 12,900 square meters are currently occupied by 15 tenants.
Advice for the transaction in Hamburg was provided by CMS in Frankfurt (legal and taxes) as well as by CBRE (technical). The transaction was brokered by Colliers International Hamburg.
DIC Asset AG has around 20 years of experience on the German real estate market. It has six branch offices in Germany and has 175 assets with a combined market value of around €7.1 billion under management as of 30 June 2019.
The image is from Wikimedia and is reproduced under CreativeCommons.
Source: https://www.dic-asset.de/engl/news/pressrelease.php?we_objectID=1240
See details of two Novotel Hotels bought for €83 million
